Abstract
Research suggests young women view drinking as a pleasurable aspect of their social lives but that they face challenges in engaging in a traditionally ‘masculine’ behaviour whilst maintaining a desirable ‘femininity’. Social network sites such as Facebook make socialising visible to a wide audience. This paper explores how young people discuss young women’s drinking practices, and how young women construct their identities through alcohol consumption and its display on social media. We conducted 21 friendship-based focus groups (both mixed and single sex) with young adults aged 18–29 years and 13 individual interviews with a subset of focus group respondents centred on their Facebook practices. We recruited a purposive sample in Glasgow, Scotland (UK) which included ‘middle class’ (defined as students and those in professional jobs) and ‘working class’ respondents (employed in manual/service sector jobs), who participated in a range of venues in the night time economy. Young women’s discussions revealed a difficult ‘balancing act’ between demonstrating an ‘up for it’ sexy (but not too sexy) femininity through their drinking and appearance, while still retaining control and respectability. This ‘balancing act’ was particularly precarious for working class women, who appeared to be judged more harshly than middle class women both online and offline. While a gendered double standard around appearance and alcohol consumption is not new, a wider online audience can now observe and comment on how women look and behave. Social structures such as gender and social class remain central to the construction of identity both online and offline.
Highlights
In her important review of the role of alcohol in British women’s lives, Plant (2008) argues that changes in gender roles and in women’s social and economic position, the ‘feminisation’ of the night time economy, sales of cheap alcohol in supermarkets, and female-targeted marketing form the backdrop to increased drinking amongst young women over the past 50 years
A ‘vulnerability discourse’ in respect of ‘spoiled’ femininity and assault is often used to justify the double standard around gender and intoxication, even by those young people who perceive that heavy drinking by young women shows equality with their male peers (Lyons & Willott, 2008)
This paper examines how young people discuss young women’s drinking practices and their display on social networking sites, focusing on the gendered and classed nature of drinking, online displays and implications for feminine identities
Summary
In her important review of the role of alcohol in British women’s lives, Plant (2008) argues that changes in gender roles and in women’s social and economic position, the ‘feminisation’ of the night time economy, sales of cheap alcohol in supermarkets, and female-targeted marketing form the backdrop to increased drinking amongst young women over the past 50 years. A more recent body of qualitative research suggests that young women view alcohol as a pleasurable and important aspect of their social lives (Bancroft, 2012; Guise & Gill, 2007; Seaman & Edgar, 2012), and place value upon sharing drinking and hangover stories (Griffin, Bengry-Howell, Hackley, Mistral, & Szmigin, 2009; Sheehan & Ridge 2001). It is not the consumption of alcohol which is considered enjoyable, and what that consumption represents. A ‘vulnerability discourse’ in respect of ‘spoiled’ femininity and (sexual) assault is often used to justify the double standard around gender and intoxication, even by those young people who perceive that heavy drinking by young women shows equality with their male peers (Lyons & Willott, 2008)
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